My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[minhgi]

Looks like I won't be able to do any oc till I get my ram temp down to a cool 55C. These frigquent high density FBdimm is sure a pain. My last resort was to order a side panel with a 250mm fan to keep the system cool. Let see if it help.

Anyway here are pics of my new system or like old on the inside and new on the outside. =)

[Movieman]

Dave, you said it took you 16 hours or something. It takes about one so
And I would have been happy with those HR-01 once installed. Little did I know then that these freaking mobos die all the time!
I went to water so I could swap CPUs easily (in 30 seconds), and ebcause it was my plan all along. otehrwise I would have stuck with the Thermalrights.

22 hours, get it right, and I had a pre release set and sent TR a list of changes to make before they released the HS..
You can thank me that it only took you an hour!

[STEvil]

Looks like I won't be able to do any oc till I get my ram temp down to a cool 55C. These frigquent high density FBdimm is sure a pain. My last resort was to order a side panel with a 250mm fan to keep the system cool. Let see if it help.

Anyway here are pics of my new system or like old on the inside and new on the outside. =)
-snip-

Those OCZ fan brackets arent enough for FB-DIMM's, also 55c isnt much. I load at 67-80c (depends on whether its a hot day or not).

[Tecman]

So....Did we scare away the Asus rep or what?

[Movieman]

So....Did we scare away the Asus rep or what?

I don't think he likes me.
I wasn't PC with him but brutally honest.

[jcool]

I guess so..

This forum requires that you wait 70 seconds between posts. Please try again in 46 seconds.

Can we get rid of that already?! It disturbs my spamming spree, badly!

[minhgi]

Does it matter if the snoop filter be enable? Subject on the snoop filter around the internet suggested to have it turn on. Here at this forum, Jcool recommend to have it turn off.

Since Asus had updated the Z7S bios to .501, should we revisit this feauture.

What is everyone recommendation?

Thanks

[jcool]

I haven't tried it since, but knowing Asus I don't think they fixed it. You are welcome to test performance of course, but I'd expect it to still be horrible with SF enabled.

[Snootch]

Hi all, I’ve been a long time reader of these forums, but just joined since I’ve never had anything to say post-worthy until now. It took me 2 days, but I’ve read the entire thread since the beginning. (whew!) I found this thread after doing a Google search on Z7S, which I bought a few days ago (currently waiting on shipment from Amazon). I wanted a moderately future proof upgrade to my Q6600/680i system, so I did some research, chose the Z7S over the Skulltrail, then I saw this thread. Anyway- this is what I’ve purchased:
1 x Asus Z7S
2 x Harpertown E5405’s (2.0Ghz, using stock coolers)
4 x Supertalent 4Gb FB-DIMM’s (16Gb) (what is better, Hynix chips, or Samsung chips?)
2 x 60GB OCZ Vertex SSD’s in RAID 0 (for OS)
2 x Arctic Cooling ram heatsinks w/cooler

These are what components I already have from the Q6600/680i build, and plan on using:
Silverstone Strider 850W modular PSU (EPS)
XFX nVidia 8800GTX 768Mb PCI-e Video card
150Gb WD Raptor HDD
Cooler Master CM Media 280 HTPC Case

I really am not into crunching, and don’t plan on overclocking. I just really wanted to build a machine that would be able to do pretty much anything I wanted, quickly. The Q6600/680i build was pretty good, but was frustratingly slow when un-RARing large 1080p MKV files. (I guess “slow” is a relative term)
My computer/HTPC setup is in the living room, in the entertainment center. Display is my 47” LCD TV, and input is through a Bluetooth Logitech Dinovo edge keyboard and wireless MX Revolution mouse 10 feet from the screen, from my favorite spot on the couch:



I routinely stream 1080p movies from my 2TB RAID5 fileserver, play games at 1080p res (Crysis, Bioshock, Fallout 3) ,download movies, and sometimes encode them to x264 and do a little video editing. I think this Z7S build is the right hardware at this time, but I ordered it all, then read the latter half of this thread.
I know all of you are OC’ing your Harpers, trying to get every last clock cycle out of them for WCG and Boinc, but for my uses, do you think (no or maybe mild OC) if I flash the 501 BIOS I will be alright for day to day use? Or do you believe the Z7S is just a ticking time bomb and I should sell it and use a different board? I would like to thank you all for your very informative discussion in this thread which has opened my eyes regarding octo-core workstations.

[jcool]

Well I'm afraid 8*2Ghz isn't much these days.. a single Core i7 920 D0 at 4Ghz will probably stomp your setup for what you want to use it for (gaming, encoding) and you wouldn't run the risk of it suddenly failing without notice.

If you haven't bought anything yet, don't. Get an i7 on a decent motherboard (DFI, Gigabyte, NOT Asus ) with 12GB of DDR3-1600, it will be faster overall.

If you can return what you bought, do it. If you can't, well... try your luck. But at stock 2Ghz you won't be having much fun with gaming. You see, 99% of all PC games are poorly optimized for multiple cores, all they care about is core speed (which you don't really have at 2Ghz). So your gonna have to try and OC if you want gaming performance. Depending on your CPUs' stepping, FSB 420 to 440 should be attainable. Note that you must improve northbridge cooling in order to properly overclock (you can add a small fan to the NB sink if you don't feel comfortable replacing it). Also don't forget to add a fan to blow on the rams (with or without OC) as these run hot as hell.

[perkam]

This thread gives the wrong impression on Harpertown systems IMO. They're not a viable choice if you're buying the parts brand new.

@ Jcool, you're so very right. Snootch, dude, awesome rig there buddy, but what on earth were you thinking getting 2Ghz harpertowns when 2Ghz Nehalems are the same price ??!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117187

Even better, atm you can get a Combo deal for an Asus Z8P D12 with a Nehalem E5520 (has HT) for $720, which together with a second E5520 comes to within $1,400 for a 16 thread system with the rest of the parts combined

Perkam

[Snootch]

Ugh, I was under the impression during my research that the E5405 Harpertown was equivalent (400Mhz slower) to my current Q6600, and I would perform a slight OC if I needed to. I bought them with the idea upgrade to QX9775's later down the road once prices come down. I already bought all the parts unfortunately before I saw this thread. Wouldn't gaming be mostly influenced by the GPU? Again, I didn't go the dual CPU route specifically for gaming, just as a machine that would do everything better than my Q660/680i setup does now.

[Snootch]

Good News!

I crunched some numbers and did some more research. I found all the parts I would need to return are returnable. Here's what I spent:

ASUS Z7S (returned) $480.00
2x Intel Xeon E5405 Harpertown 2.0GHz LGA 771 $450.00
16GB Supertalent FB-DIMM $300.00
TOTAL: $1230.00

Here's what I hope is a better replacement for $60 more:

ASUS Z8PE-D12 Motherboard + E5520 combo $720.00
OCZ Platinum 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 $200.00
1x Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366 $380.00
TOTAL: $1300.00

I will still use the RAM cooler and SSD's I bought + the other equipment currently being employed. Does this sound like a better way to spend $1300?

[perkam]

Good News!

I crunched some numbers and did some more research. I found all the parts I would need to return are returnable. Here's what I spent:

ASUS Z7S (returned) $480.00
2x Intel Xeon E5405 Harpertown 2.0GHz LGA 771 $450.00
16GB Supertalent FB-DIMM $300.00
TOTAL: $1230.00

Here's what I hope is a better replacement for $60 more:

ASUS Z8PE-D12 Motherboard + E5520 combo $720.00
OCZ Platinum 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 $200.00
1x Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366 $380.00
TOTAL: $1300.00

I will still use the RAM cooler and SSD's I bought + the other equipment currently being employed. Does this sound like a better way to spend $1300?

Good thing you have these forums

The difference between your old rig and your new one will be night and day my friend

Perkam

[jcool]

Here's what I hope is a better replacement for $60 more:

ASUS Z8PE-D12 Motherboard + E5520 combo $720.00
OCZ Platinum 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 $200.00
1x Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz LGA 1366 $380.00
TOTAL: $1300.00

I will still use the RAM cooler and SSD's I bought + the other equipment currently being employed. Does this sound like a better way to spend $1300?

Yes, that sounds way better. Even tho you won't be able to overclock this, so a single 920 at 4Ghz would still be the better option for gaming.
For encoding, however, this is the best solution for your money.

[Snootch]

Yes, I do like to play games, but it is not my #1 priority. As my Q6600 sits now with it's single 8800GTX, I am satisfied with it's performance in playing Crysis. If I have to give up SLI/Crossifre support & OC capability to get multi-core multi-thread power for encoding, then so be it. I won't lose any sleep over it. Again, a big thanks to you all for steering me in the right direction! I'll post in the right section illustrating my build when I get all the parts.

[minhgi]

I traded out my OCZ XTC Memory Cooler with version 2 of the same. What would be the best ram cooler replacement for the FBDimm them self.

I was thinking of the thermalright hr-07, but it seem like it is only made for standard memory.

[Snootch]

I traded out my OCZ XTC Memory Cooler with version 2 of the same. What would be the best ram cooler replacement for the FBDimm them self.

I was thinking of the thermalright hr-07, but it seem like it is only made for standard memory.

I bought these RAM coolers, and fan which I bought from NCIX.com
I think they would do a great job of cooling off the FB-DIMMS. The reason I chose them was because I saw a youtube video of a guy building a Z7S build, and this is what he was using, so they must fit FB-DIMMS. I really don't think there is a physical size difference between DDR2/DDR3 and FB-DIMM.

[Jaco]

I bought these RAM coolers, and fan which I bought from NCIX.com
I think they would do a great job of cooling off the FB-DIMMS. The reason I chose them was because I saw a youtube video of a guy building a Z7S build, and this is what he was using, so they must fit FB-DIMMS. I really don't think there is a physical size difference between DDR2/DDR3 and FB-DIMM.

They'd fit , but there's an AMB chip on every FB-dimm module. The AMB chip sticks out a little , which makes it a little difficult.

[Snootch]

They'd fit , but there's an AMB chip on every FB-dimm module. The AMB chip sticks out a little , which makes it a little difficult.

But is the board the same dimension right? I assume the AMB chip is for error checking. I guess it wouldn't be too hard to bend the heatsink out with a pair of pliers slightly to clear the AMB chip and so all the RAM chips are still touching the heatsink.

[jcool]

The AMB chip does all the communication for the DIMMs with the NB, it is sort of a miniature IMC. It's also what produces all the heat on those sticks. If you use thick thermal pads on the rams and just a tiny drop of thermal compound on the AMB it should work, that's what I did with the Rambocks anyways. The PCB sizes are pretty much identical to DDR1/2/3

[minhgi]

The AMB chip does all the communication for the DIMMs with the NB, it is sort of a miniature IMC. It's also what produces all the heat on those sticks. If you use thick thermal pads on the rams and just a tiny drop of thermal compound on the AMB it should work, that's what I did with the Rambocks anyways. The PCB sizes are pretty much identical to DDR1/2/3

Jcool,

So pretty much I can use any standard aftermarket ram cooler such as the HR-07 and use the method that you mention.

However, I see your ram cooler use screws to hold itself together, where the HR-07 is one whole piece and a slide on to the ram it self. Will that cause any issue?

[jcool]

Yeah, it likely won't work because the total height of the Dimm with AMB chip + socket is probably too much for those Thermalrights. Maybe with some bending but no promises...

[minhgi]

Humm...

I wanted to sooooo bad cause it looks good and extremely functional. With any bending, my ram would be squash like a Sasquatch.

What ram cooler do you recommend?

[jcool]

Well, no idea really.. I haven't touched my ram in over a year now (except to remove it and re-seat it in another mobo when Z7S #2 died), and the subject of FB-DDR2 is long past for me with the new generation using standard DDR3 (thankfully). Unfortunately you probably can't buy the ram sinks I used outside of Germany, but there has to be some similar product out there. I just don't think the Thermalrights are flexible enough for FBdimm...